Scheherazade Casserole

Um, yeah I couldn't pronounce it either, so I looked it up. My Google U degree tells me this:

1. Scheherazade - pronounced shuh-her-uh-zah-duh

2. The fictional wife of a sultan and the narrator of the tales in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments

What that has to do with this dish I have absolutely no idea. I found the recipe in my Moosewood cookbook. It's excellent! Everyone liked it a lot. I think Jay tolerates a lot of my meatless mains, but he really liked this dish. Eli ate two bowls full. Josie ate it, but she would have done better if the bell peppers were invisible. I've modified the original recipe because I wasn't able to find dried raw soybeans. I substituted canned chickpeas. I read a couple other versions of this dish online and some used white beans, but I think that would be too mushy. The texture of the bulgur and the chickpeas was nice. This was also my first time cooking bulgur. I'd heard of it before, but had no idea what it was. I'll hopefully stumble across another recipe for bulgur because I have a box full of it now. 

1 cup raw bulgar

1 cup boiling water

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 1/2 cups minced onion

3-5 large cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp cumin

1 1/2 tsp basil

1/2 tsp black pepper

1 large bell pepper, diced

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 14.5-oz. can diced tomatoes

3 Tbsp tomato paste

1/2 cup finely minced parsley

1 1/2 cups feta, crumbled

1. Preheat oven to 375. Lightly oil a 9x13 baking dish.

2. Place the bulgar in a small bowl. Add boiling water, cover with a plate and let stand for 15 minutes.

3. Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Saute onion, garlic and seasonings for 5-8 minutes. Add bell pepper and saute about 5 minutes more.

4. Place chickpeas in a food processor. Pulse until beans resemble coarse crumbs. Transfer to a large bowl. Add the bulgar and sauteed vegetables. Stir in the tomatoes and tomato paste. Add 1 cup of the feta and the parsley. Mix well.

5. Spread mixture into the prepared baking dish. Sprinkle remaining feta on top. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake 15 minutes more. 

Review - Excellent!!! This dish really shocked me. I've had a string of so-so dishes lately, you know the kind of dish that's good and everyone eats it, but you don't really have any motivation to make it again or type up the recipe and post it to your blog (ahem). Between the fish sticks and this casserole I feel like I'm back on track. Go me!